Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Plans To Make Windows 10, Xbox One Game "Crossbuys" A Habit (pcworld.com)
Gamers who preorder Remedy's upcoming Xbox One game, Quantum Break, will receive a free digital copy for Windows 10 PCs -- a "crossbuy" strategy that Microsoft's Xbox chief plans to make a "platform feature" of the gaming console.
Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another.
Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another.
I bet the news will motivate Steam to port even more games to Linux. And who knows, we might see some Linux-only blockbuster exclusives soon.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Watch whether games you buy are "crossbuy" so you can avoid them. Piss-poor console ports are already a known problem, but when it becomes pretty much a requirement that whatever you want to play on your PC has to run on an anemic console, you may bet the 60 bucks that it's going to be just a crappy port with no consideration to different controls, different resolutions or different play styles than waste that money on buying the rubbish.
I'm already fed up enough with more and more games being developed for some console, then being half-assed ported to PC to cash in again without at least an afterthought on the differences of the platforms, where you can consider yourself already lucky if it's just shot controls that only make sense on a console controller but none on mouse and keyboard and you don't have to pretty much disable any semblance of networking security so you can play online.
Thanks, but no thanks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I use both Linux and Windows at home. Linux really is not an option for gamers, at least not yet.
I have no problems using Linux. I've been a Linux user since 1995. The problem is applications. Without Word, Solidworks and a few others, I am dead in the water.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
It actually depends on your taste in games.
If you're after the latest games in terms of graphics and AAA-titles, then yes. Since I myself am more an indie-gamer, Linux is definitely becoming more of an option.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.
My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.
This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Steam is having enough difficultly convincing developers to sell a game for three platform. How are developers and publisher going to gobble this up?
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
Steam already allow me to start a game on Linux, and continue playing it on my Macbook while on the road. It's another case of Microsoft playing catch-up while trying to sound innovative.
GOG is not that far behind either.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
AutoCAD. Solid Works. Good CAM software. Quick Books. Games.
Last time Microsoft released a first person Halo game on PC? 9 years ago, with Halo 2, and even that was three years after the console version.
Put your money where your mouth is, Microsoft.
This sounds great. I can play games at home on my Xbox/TV and on the road on my PC. Not really sure why anyone is complaining about this.
I'm still waiting for Windows 10 to come out of alpha testing.(Seriously it has a bug that causes the start button to not work. When this happens store apps and edge might not work either. The solution is to either create a new account or possibly reinstall windows. How the hell did that one get missed?)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
I switched to Linux in the early 2000's. Never looked back.
I understand there are hurdles for the average user to understand the differences in operating systems, but I've yet to find a situation that I can't do a specific task under Linux, and would requir Windows.
I have exactly one program that requires Windows. SmartSDR, which controls a Software defined radio that I have. So I run Windows 7 in bootcamp, and have a W10 computer I'm testing.
The exciting thing is there is some software in beta for the radio on OSX that I'm testing. I managed 4 years Windows free and loving it. I'll raise a glass of Patron if I can kick it again soon. Now if a Linux version comes out, I'll drain the bottle.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I have no problems using Linux. I've been a Linux user since 1995. The problem is applications. Without Word, Solidworks and a few others, I am dead in the water.
I needed cross platform compatibility, so that makes Word a non-starter. If a document prepared in word on a Windows machine breaks when you take it to Mac - it's a big fail
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yeah there is shitty stuff too. Don't see what your you're trying to say.
Very frustrating.
This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."
This is me too. I'm typing this on my Linux Mint laptop which I find a bit of a pig. It works ok as a web/email machine but even youtube makes it fall over (it used to be Win7 and never had a problem).
I've been using Linux on and off since it was invented. It's good for servers where you can customise it down to app specific functions only so make it efficient and secure, but for the desktop uniformity is a big plus, which Linux on the desktop will never have. There's too many distros, too many variations of each distro, too many interfaces and apps that all do similar things but not quite, and there's no consistency across any of it.
You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.
My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.
This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."
Here here.
The rapid anti Windows 10/8 on slashdot has many users screaming the world is coming to an end and I am switching to LINUX!
In reality I experienced the opposite by 2011 and gave up. Back then Windows 7 was amazing and aero was everything I wished gnome 2 would turn into when gnome3 came out :-( At the time I never had the wildest claim that MS would ever release a bad GUI so Windows fanboy I became after years and years of anti MS hatred.
What the changed me was my exwife. She said get this garbage off your system and go get a better job. I said excuse me?? She said her Vista works just fine but funny how I can't ever get Linux to just work. I went on saying WINDOWS SUX LINUX RUX etc etc. She claimed well how is it that you re-install that OS each time an update comes and xorg breaks? How about that time you tried to get ngnix working and forget how to fix it? Sigh
She was right. I was a freebsd fan at 1st and felt Linux to be more grown than designed and after 10 years gave up on Linux.
Folks I know this is a pro Linux website and I am serious not a troll as I read my posts from 2002 threatening to leave IT forever if Windows Server takes :-) ... but, let's face it. Why do people need to be liberated? Windows most of the time is reliable and works thanks to NT/XP replacing 98. The 1990s are long long over and MS is not based on DOS anymore people! If you haven't ran Windows in 15 years this maybe surprising but for gamers like my exwife she wants ventrillo and World of warcraft to always work and not have an update break something or use a hack in WINE.
The only arguments I hear is spyware (but you all run smart TV's and use Android phones and Chrome) , reliability (Windows is more reliable on the desktop for about 10 years now), GUI (Windows 10 is fine and it is fear of change and familiarity). It is the same start menu but the icons now are more animated. OMG END OF THE WORLD. So take the tiles off and bam you got XP style start menu again.
I love FreeBSD and yes Linux. No really it has it's use as VM for development work and for certain servers. But I hate it on the desktop. I prefer Windows or MacOSX for the desktop and Unix for the Vm's. Let's face it who the hell wants to replace Excel, Witchers 3, and Photoshop for OpenOffice, TuxRacer, and the Gimp or kIllustrator? You love screwdrivers and that is fine. But hammers are needed too
http://saveie6.com/
Yeah there is shitty stuff too. Don't see what your you're trying to say.
What do you want to make a bet that AC has an Android phone and typed that from Chrome :-)
Viruses and bsod are so last decade since Windows is NT based now. But I suppose if you have not run Windows since 1999 you think Win98SE which is a dos shell based is how the world still runs where people need to re-image every 6 months and crashes 3 times a day because that is what they remember.
http://saveie6.com/
Usually it's because they're rebuilding the plane while it's airborne, some major subsystem or critical application is always in massive change with regressions. The distros try but with tens of thousands of packages it's pretty hopeless to cherry pick stable versions of everything. It's not going anywhere until they manage to take over the apps though. For example I've heard it said many times here that Office/Outlook was pretty much "done" around 97/2003 and yet here we are in 2016 and they still dominate the business world. Say what you want about the number of games on Steam, the number of gamers is 0.95% (-0.01%) on the last survey. It was cool to see same day support for XCOM 2 though I'm on Windows now, gives me hope at least. Now if only someone could get GTA V working under WINE maybe I'd care to try again.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Linux is massively overrated and that's why I stopped using it. But defending the Windows 10 GUI? If I don't like it, it's fear of change? OK.
I just swapped your car's pedals and inverted the dashboard, and the fuel cap is now under the left wheel. Quit being afraid of change and adapt.
I don't play video games.
I go outside. You know, that place that has higher than 4K resolution graphics everywhere, and you can physically interact with people?
Ccleaner lets you uninstall Store apps. It actually works. Just don't uninstall the Store itself, unless you like breaking things.
in the last 10 years and the only issues I had was getting the Broadcom wifi chip working on the Dell Inspirion laptops. Hell I had Hercules RMX/MIXXX operating with a few tiny issues.
Sure there might be some issues here and there you might run into but you make it sound like a cluster fuck when you try Linux. I can't even phantom why anyone would want to go into Windows 10 with the we'll rape you in the ass while spying on you features.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The only arguments I hear is spyware (but you all run smart TV's and use Android phones and Chrome) , reliability (Windows is more reliable on the desktop for about 10 years now), GUI (Windows 10 is fine and it is fear of change and familiarity). It is the same start menu but the icons now are more animated. OMG END OF THE WORLD. So take the tiles off and bam you got XP style start menu again.
1. Spyware : Why would people cribbing about spyware in Windows use smart TVs? Android phones run cyanogenmod with Xprivacy nicely - and Google's shit can be culled once and for-all, and important security updates on cyanogenmod don't reinstall Google's shit unless you block 153 Google hostnames / IP addresses. Firefox still beats Chrome in privacy enhancement and tree-style-tabs add-ons - and on Linux the performance problems of Firefox are nearly non-existent.
2. Reliability : Does it yet shut down unmounting all file-systems reliably in 3 seconds, without different applications calling attention to themselves when you are trying to shut down your computer. Does it have reliable update mechanism for most of the applications one is likely to use - and doesn't depend on the application having write permission on its own executable? Because that is a horrible security escalation risk. Hell - is the alt-tab behaviour reliable yet where windows are ordered in last used order - or Microsoft reorders your windows according to its own whims every few minutes?
Do I sense the reliability of snapshotting filesystems on Windows yet? Or the reliability of simple file copy backups without other programs that opened the files prevent simple applications from copying the files at all?
3. GUI : Does Windows give you choice of changing GUI every day vs. stable GUI since 1995 (FVWM) according to your tastes? In spite of getting security updates, which are really security updates rather than "telemetry" ? Does it give you the right to fear and avoid change vs welcome change in your daily work flow without annoying pop-ups to update your work-flow to suit Microsoft?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
The console performs bad: Let's promote cross platform with the PC
On the other hand if the console was performing well, they'd do everything in their power to keep the PC as far from the Xbone as possible.
That's funny, whenever I try to use Windows I have a similar problem. My printer doesn't work, 7.1 surround sound card w/optical out doesn't work, TV tuner doesn't allow me to capture in as high a resolution and I get sync problems when recording with the Windows software, and on my laptop every time I want to shut down it takes half an hour for the patches to install before I can close the lid. Found this out because one day I went to use it and when I opened it up I was greeted by a message that Windows was going to shut down soon but still had 10 patches left to install. I don't want to just leave it open, I want to put it away so my kid can't get at it. It also just boots and runs more slowly in general, and all the apps I want to use are already on Linux.
Every once in a while I get tempted to try some game or emulator on Windows but it's just not worth the pain of hunting for drivers, finding decent apps that fill missing functionality in Windows (like proper image/video viewers, proper text file editor, proper sound recorder, etc etc), and then keeping all those apps up to date so I don't run into security issues is a pain because each has their own updater and of course doesn't update through Windows Update. Even installing some basic apps is a pain, I have to dodge the right check boxes and make sure there was nothing stealth installed or my home page wasn't changed or other *completely unrelated* crap doesn't happen.
This is how my Windows experience goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "why did I even bother, it was just a stupid game and I have a console anyway."
Twinstiq, game news
Linux is massively overrated and that's why I stopped using it. But defending the Windows 10 GUI? If I don't like it, it's fear of change? OK.
I just swapped your car's pedals and inverted the dashboard, and the fuel cap is now under the left wheel. Quit being afraid of change and adapt.
So, Linux is overrated because it's not Windows?
http://crummysocks.com
I've seen the same thing myself, although not necessarily with my own experiences. If someone installs a distro, chances are it's either going to be Unity or Gnome 3, both of which are completely awful. It just doesn't make for a good user experience to have that thrown in their face. We're at a time when most of the user-facing bugs have been/are getting ironed out, yet the popular GUIs went down the tubes. Oh well.
For what average Mom, teenage girl, and Joe six do not care if it reliably unmount all file systems in 3 seconds. An SSD with sleep is good enough. People do not root their phones. Your comment on telemetry is incorrect. Most are bug and security fixes and MS has been doing anonymous telemetry and so does Firefox, Chrome, and most win32 apps for half a decade now. Security? Windows 7 has ASLR, DEP, and other techiques, that Linux is playing catch up on. As MS really did suck I give Bill Gates credit for the security memo. MS has a security buddy for each project and Windows 7 and later have kernel level sandboxing and other features.
They do not want Killustrator knock offs, drivers breaking due to the lack of an ABI due to ideological reasons from Stallman, and a really stale GUI of FVWM.
They want to turn their pc on and get to work, play a game of wow, print some photos from a vacation, and go over a presentation for next week at all while it works without change for year after year reliable and consistently. Shoot you saw the XP die hards crying. Linux changed its guis many times over the same time frame.
Windows works. Sorry MS won the war before Linux became popular and Steve Jobs even admitted Microsoft won and the Mac lost hence the push for ipods, then iphones later on.
FreeBSD and Linux appliance VM's I get from turnkey linux in a hypervisor are fine. Unless you like an unusal geeky project or want to play with node.js there is no reason to run it at home. It is a different tool for a different problem.
http://saveie6.com/
Because you're a moron? I haven't yet needed to reinstall my Linux system, neither for updates, nor the usual "registry slowdowns", that keeps plaguing Windows.
Originally it was a dual boot Linux / Windows 98, but I got rid of the Windows partition because I never used it. Just how many times would I have needed to reinstall Windows, if I have used that?
Since Windows 7 changes are virtualized for the registry if something unusual is detected hence the UAC prompt "Did this install properly"
http://saveie6.com/
MS won, you say, but you don't have an answer to most if my points? FYI I am not a teenage girl, so what do I care what that class of users wants?
Linux never changed its GUI, you're just too ignorant to talk about it.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
But, but, but, that's a lost sale! Are you making the ridiculous suggestion that these people "weren't buying a second copy anyway"? Are you implying Microsoft is doing this crossbuy feature because it doesn't cost them anything?
If they had started to do this back in the XBox360 days. I love gaming, so I have a PC and a console. I do double dip time to time, for games like Battlefield, Fallout, and Skyrim. But if Microsoft is going to make cross licenses like Steam does with all its vendors for PC/Mac/Linux, then I would have bought an XBox One going into this generation. I'd already have saved money by Fallout 4 on PC/PS4 if the cross platform was just built in to begin with.
A good move by Microsoft for sure. The next generation after this, I'll probably be using their platform because of this alone.
It has been a very long time since Linux has not worked out of the box, in fact in the last two Linux Mint installs I did it worked perfectly out of the box. It was more trouble to reinstall Windows because the laptop I had used NVidia Optimus (a 600 series chip in combination with an Intel HD chip). It was a pain in the arse because the drivers for both graphics chips needed to be installed and then an additional driver from the laptop manufacturer to get it to switch between the two chips.
I dual boot Win 7 and Linux Mint 17.1. I have far less trouble with Linux Mint.
I love how people like to deride Linux for having problems but then give Windows a free pass. Up to a few months ago, I was having a continual problem with my mouse in Windows. It would spontaneously uninstall itself (which caused the hardware to stop) and then re-install itself. I tried every trick under the sun to get it to work. In the end do you want to know how I fixed it... I reinstalled Windows. Yep, with Linux you may have to muck about with a config file or two, but at least you can fix a live system where as with Windows you need to do a complete reinstall to fix many common issues.
This is to say nothing of Win Rot, which is alive and well despite the protestations of Microsoft's fanbase.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I've been using Gentoo since about 2004/2005. In 2010 or so I migrated to Funtoo upon buying new hardware.
Perhaps because in the early days it required you to get down and dirty and an understanding of what you are doing just to install it, I am more disciplined?
If you have to nuke your entire system just to fix X you have serious problems with your understanding of Linux.
I keep a flash drive around with SystemRescueCD (relatively) up to date, just in case. I've used it twice in the last year, and once was to perform a fresh install of Funtoo on a "micro pc" I have hooked up to my TV, the other time was this past weekend to run Memtest on my younger brothers Windows computer.
I'll let you in on a little secret... if you use Linux, and somehow break your system, boot into SystemRescueCD, mount your filesystems, chroot into your system and fix away. No reinstalls needed.
Can this be done on Windows? Absolutely not. Your choices are reinstall or buy new hardware. Both options are a huge waste of time/money.